We Did What?

At our senior dinner last week, our college counselor described what our current seniors had experienced since the start of their freshman year.  This, of course, included both the lockdown spring and the hybrid year.  As she described it, I had a sort of out-of-body experience.  While I know we did those things, I can't quite connect to them.  I turned to the person next to me and said, "How did we do that?"  

While lockdown and hybrid were certainly the biggest an most unexpected things we have ever done, the truth is that my teaching career has been full of things I would not have imagined before they happened.  

I've had to deal with a student having a grand mal seizure.  I've taught during a shooting threat.  I witnessed a fight in the cafeteria. I had a student take me shopping for jeans (a different time -  I wouldn't do that now).  I sponsored multiple clubs, organizing trips and judges and events.  All of that was before I turned 25, and none of them are things I would have imagined before the age of 20.

The year I taught in Wake County is a bit of blur, but the defining moment was when the principal came in to tell me about 9/11.  Who could have imagined the country could be attacked at 9:30 in the morning, and teachers would continue to teach until 3 in the afternoon?  All day, I had to make decisions about how to deal with this unfolding story as bells rang and new groups of kids came into my room.  Should we watch the coverage because it is historic, or is it bad for their brains to soak in it all day?  These aren't decisions a teacher thinks they will have to make when they choose this profession at the age of 18.

I've been at my current school for 20 years, and occasionally I say to the teacher next door to me (we came the same year), "Man, we have seen a lot."  And, as is becoming the pattern, most of the things we have seen were things we weren't prepared for.  We've been part of new building projects, hiring new people, taught subjects we've ever taught before (algebra, health, and video editing were not in my mind ever), and growing our programs.  We've guided students through grief while dealing with our own.  We've put out fires (both metaphorical and literal).  We've learned to teach in new ways year after year, written textbooks, made videos, adapted to schedule changes, collaborated with other teachers, and dealt with three accreditation cycles.  When I imagined my teaching career as a college student, I pictured planning and teaching lessons and grading tests.  The rest of that wasn't something I had even considered.

As I distribute my 18th and final yearbook on Friday, I look back and can't quite imagine that there have been 18 of them.  Part of me still feels like I am new to the job and don't know what I'm doing.  When I took a job teaching science at GRACE 20 years ago, I could not have envisioned that one day, I'd be carting around 1280 pounds of books.  I'm getting ahead of myself because that is next week's post, so I'll stop now.

My point is this.  It's a good thing we don't know what is coming.  We would believe it wasn't possible to do things we've never done before and have trouble even imagining.  But afterward, we can look back on it and say, "We did what?" and "Yes, we did that."

It Was Just in Someone's Mind

This morning, in a post-camp haze, I was mindlessly flipping through channels.  Being Sunday morning, there were a number of church services, and a passed one with a very large and exceptionally skilled choir.  They were singing The Hallelujah Chorus. While I am not sure why they were singing this in July, I am happy to hear this song any time, so I stayed and enjoyed the rapturous crescendo that defines that incredible work, missing being in such a choir (because hearing that song from an audience is nothing compared to being surrounded by it).  As it ended, it occurred to me that, because it was written in 1741, there was a time when that song did not exist.  What then struck me was what it must have been like to be Handel, to have never heard that song before, and then to have had it in your mind.  What must that feel like? 

Creativity and imagination are words we have cheapened in our culture. Like most other good words, we have overused them to the point of meaninglessness or used them in a context they are too big for.  When we tell students that part of their grade on a project will be for creativity, what too many teachers have meant is that they will give points for making it pretty.  All you need is a little glitter to get creativity points (which is disadvantaging to boys, by the way - a project can be awesome and ugly at the same time and there is far too much glitter in the world).  We also act like poets and visual artists and dancers are creative, while scoffing at the idea of a creative scientist.  This comes, I believe, from a misunderstanding of what creativity means.  Creativity, as defined by Sir Ken Robinson, is "the process of having original ideas that have value."  It is original thinking, and it's part of being made in the image of God. He is creative, so we are creative.

But it starts with something else we seem to have trouble grasping the definition of - imagination.  Again, we use it too often out of context.  Anyone who says kind of silly things is praised for having a good imagination, but we are making that word too small.  Imagination is one of the things that sets humans apart from the rest of creation.  It means having an image in our minds of something that does not exist.  Imagination enables us to envision the outcome of various choices we might make.  It allows us to hold imaginary arguments in our heads before having real ones.  It gives writers the ability to create stories and movie makers to create new worlds, but it is also what enabled the construction of a highway system before there had been one.  Before there was ever a skyscraper, someone envisioned it.  Far from being the exclusive realm of artists, imagination is held by all humans.  It is the gift from God that has allowed us to create and advance culture, to dream, to write, to invent, to describe the atom, and to travel to the moon.

Handel imagined a song he had never heard before, and a in Japanese civil engineer imagined this highway interchange.  Did he intend for it to look like a brain?  I don't know.  But, it took a nurtured and well-trained brain to make it happen.  It started with an image in his mind.  He then had to figure out how to get it out of his mind, onto paper, into the mind of someone else who saw its value.  They had to make a plan for how to make it a reality, pitch it to a group of people that would also see its value, get funding, materials, and labor.  They then had to teach those people the plan.  Those people then had to execute it.  

This blog is meant to be about education, so here's the connection.  Kids have tons of imagination, and sometimes, we unintentionally squelch it when we should be nurturing it.  There are a million products that are supposed to stimulate imagination.  While some of the people who design these may be well-meaning, the majority are just monetizing parental insecurities.  We don't have to stimulate creativity in children because God already gave it to them.  Our job is to keep them from losing it.  If a child mentions a crazy idea (which they do at least two or three times a day), it is true but unhelpful to say, "That's crazy.  The world doesn't work that way."  It would be more helpful to say, "What would that look like?" or "How would you do that?"  That allows them to elaborate on the image in their mind.  Keep them talking about the original idea they have.

Developing a child's imagination and creativity doesn't have to be difficult, and it doesn't have to cost money.  In fact, you only really need two sentences.  "That's interesting.  Tell me more."